Last night after work, I went down to the Cow and picked up a 8lb steelie - here's the weird part. This fish had all of its fins, including the adipose. So my question for all of you. Does the Cow have wild steelhead? Although the dorsal fin was split, it was tall and straight. Could this have been one of the fish coming from up above the dams? Enquiring minds want to know. I do believe that the fish gods are putting my Wild Fish Release ethos to the test. In April, I got a springer on the Kalama that had its adipose - nobody could believe it. But, you know, the catching of the fish was just as good as if I had kept these fish and it was (and is) always cool to feel the fish kick away from me.

Eddie did you ask CFM what he thought?

I would think a person would have a better chance of winning the lottery than catching a non hatchery steelhead on the cow

Good post. Earlier this year I hit the Cow for Springers, and ran into the same dilemma. I've caught hundreds of steelies on the Cow over the years, and had yet to catch a "wild" fish prior to this spring.

To make a long story short, I was in shock when I landed a native. So afterwards, we went up to the hatchery at Barrier and were told that there was a huge return of natives, and that the return should only get larger. We watched the ladder and holding pens for about half an hour and I would say that no less than 80% of the steelies we saw were wild. But again, this only goes for winter-runs.

sthldfshn - I have posted the same message over at Gamefishin.com. CFM will see it there.

It could be offspring from hatchery fish spawning naturally in the river or just unclipped hatchery fish that someone just didn't clip ,I know that at the Snoqualmie hatchery they hired some people that thought for 7.00 hr. it was too much trouble to clip All the fish. when they swam into the trap they were checked to see if they were true natives and none of them were so they used them for spawning.

I would say it was a wild or un-clipped hatchery fish. NOT to be confused with a "native" fish. Personally I refuse to believe there are any true natives in the Cowlitz.

When they put Cowlitz Fall Dam in there ten years ago a trucking program started above the dam and all retuning smolt are not clipped to say that is and upper river fish.And know ond can clipp fish all day and not miss one right.Right on you let him go.

You can't say that there are no natives on the Cowlitz. I believe that there are some natives on the Toutle and this river flows into the Cow. But then again almost nobody fishes for steelhead on this pat of the Cow so that fish was probably an upper river "wild" fish that Tacoma Power wants to take over for much of the hatchery production. :rolleyes:

there's also nothing saying that this fish didn't originate in another river in the same system such as the lewis or kalama.

Eddie,

Yes, the Cowlitz River has wild steelhead - if we accept the definition of wild as being from natural reproduction.

Most of the wild steelhead on the Cowlitz are winter run fish resulting from the reintroduction program upstream of Cowlitz Falls Dam. Unmarked adult steelhead, along with ventral fin-clipped steelhead from an upper river rearing program, are collected at the barrier dam and trucked upstream of Cowlitz Falls to spawn naturally. Smolts from upriver production are not marked, except for some fish passage tests.

If your fish was a summer run, it was not from this program. It could have been the successful result of natural reproduction from hatchery spawners, or it may have been a hatchery fish that didn't get fin clipped. Not all hatchery steelhead exhibit a deformed dorsal fin. Or it might have been a wild fish dip-in from another river system.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

I've seen hatchery fish spawning low-water channels along the river during the winter. They don't always go back to the exact origin of their birth. In my book a native fish is a fish born in the river. I believe I am a native American too, I was born here.